Another week has rolled around, and the Stanford Daily is filled with more hit pieces denouncing me, trying to shame the College Republicans into apologizing for inviting me, and above all, trying to keep people from attending my scheduled lecture tomorrow evening. In The Coming of the Third Reich, historian Richard J. Evans explains how, in the early days of National Socialist Germany, Stormtroopers (Brownshirts) “organized campaigns against unwanted professors in the local newspapers [and] staged mass disruptions of their lectures.” These Stanford students are the true children and heirs of the Brownshirts.
In this open letter from the Muslim Law Students Association and the Stanford Advocates for Immigrants’ Rights at Stanford Law School, we see the common Leftist tactic of presenting statements that are perfectly true as if they were self-evidently false. No refutation is presented, just the statement, as if any sane person would see that it was false. This is manipulation, not rational argumentation. Is this the kind of standard for research and evidence they teach at Stanford? Probably.
This letter also contains outright false claims about what I have said and positions I have taken, and the usual twisting of reasonable statements to make them sound nutty. It’s a slick tactic, but why must Stanford students resort to such tactics at all? Why not simply present evidence that what I say is false? Because that is the one thing they cannot do.
Did these students protest the appearances at Stanford of jihad mass murder apologists Aarab Barghouti and Mads Gilbert? Somehow I doubt it.
I detail the full extent, and dangers, of this moral inversion in my new book Confessions of an Islamophobe. Preorder your copy here now.
“The College Republicans promote hate and disinformation,” Stanford Daily, November 13, 2017:
Dear Stanford College Republicans:
We are writing to condemn Robert Spencer’s hateful views and your choice to legitimize them by inviting him to Stanford. Mr. Spencer is a propagandist who promotes fear of Muslims. By having him speak at your “flagship event of the year,” you have thrown your support behind the anti-Muslim policies and discourse that are increasingly accepted within the Republican Party. We respect your right to bring Mr. Spencer to speak on campus; however, we condemn your decision to endorse his bigoted ideology, which targets Muslims, immigrants and people of color across the world, including your fellow classmates and community members here at Stanford.
Opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression “promotes fear of Muslims” and “targets Muslims”? Interesting!
Mr. Spencer’s anti-Muslim agenda is well documented. He directs a blog called Jihad Watch, which spreads inflammatory and conspiratorial views of Islam[1],
Can we get an example? Of course not.
and he co-founded the Stop Islamization of America campaign, whose name speaks for itself[2].
Do the writers of this letter want stonings, amputations, honor killings, female genital mutilation, women having to get permission to leave the house, wife-beating, and the other features of Sharia societies, in the U.S.? Do the readers of this letter want those things?
Here’s a sampling of his views:
- Spencer said that Americans needed to consider “very seriously” the possibility that then-President Obama was a jihadist agent carrying out jihad against the United States.
I didn’t say that, of course. What I actually said was that Barack Obama’s policies were actively weakening the United States, and that given his position, he had to know that. I stand by that.
- He stated: “Immigration is a core Islamic principle…. [T]he idea of immigrating to a new place to conquer and Islamize it, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing…. They set up these Sharia enclaves and then because their birthrate is so much higher than that of the non-Muslim population those enclaves will inevitably grow and continue to grow until finally that’s all there is.”
Uh, yeah. Look at what’s happening in Europe. And see Qur’an 4:100 for the idea of emigration for the sake of Allah being a core Islamic principle.
- He described as “hogwash” then-President George W. Bush’s statement that Islam’s “teachings are good and peaceful,” because, according to Mr. Spencer, “Islam is the only religion in the world that has a developed doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates violence against unbelievers and mandates that Muslims must wage war in order to establish the hegemony of the Islamic social order all over the world.”
Yep. Evidence here.
- He wrote that “[m]ulticulturalism is a heresy” and that “[d]enigrating and ultimately destroying the Judeo-Christian West” is the “point of the whole multiculturalist enterprise.”
Uh huh. Read the whole article.
- He has repeatedly defended the baseless assertion that at least 80 percent of the mosques in the United States are actually controlled by extremists.
Note that while my remarks are linked, the word “baseless” is not. Interesting! Four separate studies since 1999 all found that 80% of U.S. mosques were teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians. There are no countervailing studies that challenge these results. In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the “extremist ideology.” Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom’s 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project’s 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule. In the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don’t teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism. Specifically: “A random survey of 100 representative mosques in the U.S. was conducted to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers. Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. Mosques that presented as Sharia adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-Sharia-adherent counterparts. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts. The leadership at Sharia-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshiper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-Sharia-adherent mosques. Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad. The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent jihad than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.” That means that around 1,700 mosques in the U.S. are preaching hatred of infidels and justifying violence against them.
- When Justice Elena Kagan was nominated to the Supreme Court, Mr. Spencer said that she would “knowingly and wittingly abet the advance of Sharia.”
And this is false in what way? Leftist multiculturalists think Sharia is wonderful and have worked actively against anti-Sharia measures in U.S. cities and states. I’m sure Kagan approves.
- He has called into question the existence of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar security forces, suggesting that “Islamic jihadis and supremacists may be fabricating atrocities against the Rohingya in order to sway public opinion.”
Yes. I am by no means the only person saying that.
Your group has attempted to justify inviting Mr. Spencer by highlighting that he espouses “beliefs that many of the staff in the White House hold.” You’re right about the White House: As a candidate, President Trump called for a “shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” and his travel ban aims to make that promise a reality. Unfortunately, it’s not just the White House. For example, the Republican leadership has failed to denounce the anti-Muslim views of Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has referred to Islam as a “false religion” and argued that Representative Keith Ellison should not be allowed to serve in Congress because he’s a Muslim.
I don’t think Ellison shouldn’t be in Congress because he is a Muslim. I think Ellison shouldn’t serve in Congress because he is a Muslim Brotherhood operative.
In other words, the fact that a Republican president promotes anti-Muslim policies and beliefs is not reason for Stanford Republicans to promote anti-Muslim views on campus. Rather, it is reason for you, as young Republican leaders, to take a stand and steer your party away from the path of intolerance and discrimination.
Note: these students are claiming that opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression is “anti-Muslim.” That reveals more about them than it does about me.
Confronting Islamist terrorism is one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime. We must better understand and counter extremist groups that have claimed far too many lives. For those genuinely interested in learning more about Islamist terrorism, however, Mr. Spencer has no credibility on the topic. Rather, he has exploited the threat of terrorism to demean and vilify Muslims.
Do they provide an example of my demeaning and vilifying Muslims? No. Can they? Of course not.
Moving forward, we urge you to use your position of power as representatives of the Republican Party at Stanford to combat — instead of promote — Islamophobia, hatred and fear.
Sincerely,
Muslim Law Students Association – Stanford Law School
Stanford Advocates for Immigrants’ Rights – Stanford Law SchoolContact the Muslim Law Students Association and Stanford Advocates for Immigrants’ Rights at mlsa.sair ‘at’ gmail.com.
[1] Due to its hostility towards Muslims, JihadWatch.org is classified as an active hate group by both the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center. [2] The Anti-Defamation League describes Stop Islamization of America as follows: “Consistently vilifying the Islamic faith under the guise of fighting radical Islam, the group has introduced a growing number of Americans to its conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda.” [3] Another statement by the Stanford College Republicans asserts that views like Mr. Spencer’s “are held by many of the highest government officials making national security decisions on behalf of our country[.]”
And the SPLC and ADL are reliable sources on this because…?